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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 1, 2021) The University of Kentucky’s Martin Luther King Center, in collaboration with units across campus, will host a variety of events and programming, most of which will be virtual, to celebrate Black History Month this February.
While this year’s observance looks different than past year’s due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the observation of Black History Month will, nonetheless, allow the history and culture of Black Americans to be centered in recognition of past and present challenges, struggles and achievements.
“Since the late 60s and officially in 1976, Black History Month has been a long-awaited time for the corporate celebration of Black culture, Black stories and Black people,” said Chandler Frierson, UK senior and programming intern at the MLK Center. “With that narrative, this year’s Black History Month is a special month. People across the world have witnessed firsthand a year that has further proven the enduranc
Jaida Hampton, a 2020 UK graduate, was a political science major and active in summer protests over the killing of Breonna Taylor.
Black students have only been present, much less welcomed, for less than half of the University of Kentuckyâs 155-year history. Seventy-one years ago, Lyman T. Johnson won a lawsuit that helped integrate the all-white school. Even though he never graduated from UK, and never intended to, his actions helped future generations of Black students.
However, despite Johnsonâs efforts so many years ago, UKâs Black community is still facing challenges today. For the first time last year, the university offered a major in African American and Africana studies. But 2019 also saw the Main Building sit-in led by the students of the Black Student Advisory Council and the Basic Needs campaign. Among demands to make the university more diverse and inclusive via policy changes, students were also demanding, again, that the New Deal-era mural in Memorial